The Tent
by irishhair
Summary: Flight of the Conchords: After Jemaine ill-advisedly bets the heating budget against the Harlem Globetrotters, Bret and Jemaine have to pitch a tent in their bedroom to keep warm at night. Footnotes at the end of the fic. Bret/Jemaine. SLASH


If anyone happened to be looking in on the bedroom of the members of the next quite-good-thing from New Zealand1 they would be rewarded by the sight of an old-fashioned canvas two-man tent pitched between the beds.

"Oh boys! So modest," sighed Mel and switched off her computer moniter dejectedly.

However, the tent was not, Mel may or may not have been relieved to discover, anything to do with avoiding her2. The reason was, in fact far more pedestrian than a desperate attept to flee the trappings of moderate fame.

The reason was that it was November and the heating was off in the appartment. The reason for the heating being off involved a bet and Dave's extremely convincing argument against betting on the Globe Trotters3

Suffice to say that Bret had arrived home from visiting his cousin in Canada4, to find Jemaine hung over and inexplicably contrite.

"Hey man, I just got back!" he called as he opened the door

.

"Julian sends his love. And we have to send him Murray's email address so he can talk about buying some of the CD's for his friends. If it goes well we might become sort of an underground sensation in Vancouver. Or maybe you know all of Canada...Do you think we should have tried to make it it Canada before we came here. It's sort of like being in America except the news is more cheerful and it gets colder. Jemaine? Where are you?"

Bret took of his jacket and sidestepped around the bikes into the foyer. In the sitting room Jemaine was sitting on the sofa cradling his bass and staring blankly ahead looking slightly green.

"Jemaine did you not hear me come in?" asked Bret concerned, "You look unwell. Should I make you soup? Can you eat soup? Would you rather toast and a cup of tea? I can make it now if you like,"

he said all this while floating anxiously around Jemaine, dropping his bags and trying to take his friend's temperature. Jemaine batted his hand away,

"Bret, I feel awful," he said in a small voice.

"Would you rather just have the tea and I'll leave the toast?" Bret asked gently.

"No Bret, I'm not ill. Something happened-" before he could continue, Bret interupted, immediatly assuming the worst

"Oh god, you didn't let Mel inside did you?" he asked horror-struck

"No it wasn't Mel. Dave was over and we had a few drinks-" but Bret cut him off midsentence again,

"You...and Dave. Oh Jemaine how could you? I know he's our best friend but why would you and he-"

"No! It wasn't anything...untoward. We were a bit drunk and we were watching the television and Dave had this idea that we could use the money that we had put aside for the heating bill-"

"Oh god," Bret went white

"And bet it on-"

"Oh no," and closed his eyes

"A basketball game"

"Jemaine," his eyes snapped open

"Against the Globetrotters." In the ensueing silence, Bret breathed through his nose and Jemaine gulped nervously.

"You are going to die, Jemaine Clement. And then I'm going to use your insides to stay warm like Han Solo and Luke Skywalker with that snow llama thing on planet Hoth,"

Bret stated calmly without any inflection.

"Bret, I think that you're overreacting,"

Jemaine said seriously. Luke had been freezing to death on Planet Hoth. And the snow llama thing was already dead (Bret, an animal lover to the core even if they were alien animals, still sobbed everytime it toppled over into the snow, when they watched the old VHS copy of the Empire Strikes back, sans new special effects)

"Overreacting? We had to budget for that heating money. I had to use that horrible recycled toilet paper so we could save money!"

Jemaine shifted guiltily in his seat. Bret had hated the economical toilet paper cut-backs he had instituted.

"Bret, I explained it wasn't recycled from other toilet paper,"

which was after all an important distiction.

"It was still horrible. And it's not just the toilet paper. You did this without asking me and then let me believe that you were sick or interfered with!"

"I didn't say, I mean you just sort of assumed..."

Jemaine trailed of when he saw the hard look that had settled over his friend's face.

"I don't want to talk to you right now, Jemaine."

said Bret coldly. And that, as they say was that.

...

Without the heating on the only way to keep warm in the drafty apartment was to wear several layers of Bret's jumpers5 during the day and to sleep in The Tent6. The Tent had been loaned to them by Murray, who had borrowed it from someone in his old office sometime in the 1980's. It smelled of mildew and parrafin oil and had large patches of greyish mould along its walls from being inexpertly stored over the years in Murray's damp attic. Their mattresses and bed linen were crammed inside it as far apart as was possible, which wasn't very far in the limited space.

...

...

On the first night, still in a huff with Jemaine, Bret changed in the bathroom while Jemaine changed in the room before they both retired to their respective matresses. Even in the close confines of The Tent their teeth still chattered with the cold and their skin was blueish and covered in goosepimples. Bret especially felt the cold, having much less subcutaneous fat than average on his skinny Bowie-body.

...

...

On the second night, Jemaine didn't sleep, but stayed up listening to Bret's shuddering breath, watching his body curled up in a ball with his blankets twisted into a cacoon trying to keep the warmth from escaping

...

...

On the third night, Jemaine said that they should push the mattresses toghether and double up the blankets to cover both of them. Bret told him to get stuffed.

...

...

On the fourth night, Bret stalked from the bathroom to bedroom and into The Tent while Jemaine was still changing. Jemaine some general shuffling and moving from inside and a muffled "flip" presumably uttered by Bret as there was no one else in the apartment, much less someone else with a New Zealand accent7. When he hesitently pulled back the canvas door of The Tent he saw that someone, most likely the same someone who had made the noise from earlier, had pushed the mattresses together and lain both blankets on top of each other to cover the new super-mattress. Bret was lying at the very edge with his back turned sullenly. Jemaine smiled and climbed in.

...

...

In the middle of the fifth night Bret woke up with an arm flung over him and a body pressed against his back. He kicked viciously with the heel of his foot and Jemaine woke with a start, rubbing his eyes. He looked younger without his glasses and Bret was briefly reminded of the sleepovers they'd had in their student days. Probably too old for sleepovers but no-one had told them. He stared into the other man's eyes and then looked meaningfully at his own waist.

"Sorry,"muttered Jemaine and leapt to the other side of the giant mattress guility. Bret felt strangely regretful as cold air rushed into the Jemaine shaped vacuum beside him.

...

...

On the sixth night, neither of them slept.

...

...

On the seventh night, Bret had come to a decision.

"Jemaine, I'm cold"

"So am I, Bret"

"It's sort of your fault we're cold, Jemaine."

Jemaine remained silent not really knowing where Bret was going with this.

"I'm still cross with you for making that bet but I think we could sleep closer. Just to keep warm."

Jemaine shuffled over slowly. They both lay next to each other, not touching, nervousness radiating from them.

"We've done this before," said Jemaine too fast in the still silence

"Yeah, this isn't weird or anything," Bret replied quickly.

"Besides this is just to keep warm. Normally you're always trying to sleep in my bed," Bret went on, more to fill the silence than anything else.

"What? I don't try to sleep in your bed that's absurd," Jemaine snapped defensivily

"Yeah you are, man you're always at it. If you're feeling lonely or you're mattress feels lumpy or the film was too scary. I wouldn't mind but that film wasn't even that scary"

"Oh come on, Bret a Volkswagon driving around by itself, that's pretty scary. And anyway I don't sleep in your bed"

"Yeah, 'cos I don't let you"

"That's completly...absurd," mumbled Jemaine into his pillow. They didn't say anything else that night. The next morning they woke up curled up together like kittens. They didn't say anything about it but both diplomatically ignored the situation.

...

...

On the eighth night, they settled in together carefully, avoiding contact with each other. Jemaine watched Bret's thin back rise and fall and his mouth turned dry. He cleared his throat loudly.

"What?" asked Bret, looking over his shoulder.

Jemaine jumped a little at the question8

"Uh nothing. Um I was just thinking it would be warmer if we were a bit closer."

It should have been a statement but it came out like a question.

"If we're any closer you'll be on top of me," said Bret and then blushed prettily9

"Right," replied Jemaine and shifted minutely away.

"Oh alright," said Bret quickly and closed the gap between their bodies before Jemaine had a chance to realise what was happening.

Bret pressed himself firmly against his friend10's body while screwing his eyes closed. Jemaine raised his arm hesitantly and left it hovering over Bret's waist.

"Is it alright if I-?" he left the question hanging unspoken in the air

"Sure," said Bret into his pillow. And Jemaine was almost sure he heard him say "at least I'm not wearing a wig this time."

...

...

On the ninth night, Bret turned to Jemaine quite seriously and said,

"Spooning but no forking"

"What?" asked an understandably confused Jemaine

"We can spoon to keep warm but you can't put your leg between my legs." The word 'again' was left silent at the end of the sentence

"Right."

Rules are made to be broken anyway.

...

...

All in all when the warm weather came, they were a little sad to see The Tent go back to Murray's house. On the first night back in their beds Bret tossed from one side of his bed to the other

"What's wrong?" asked Jemaine looking worried.

"Nothing. It's just my mattress is all lumpy. Can I sleep in your bed?" asked Bret looking the very picture of innocence.

...

...

1. From say, a handy webcam

2. They weren't hiding from her, but they also were not basing their every action around her and neither was entirely satisfying

3. Heighlights of which included the following, "Those a-holes are due a lose. All they do is spin the ball around to a gay theme song. And think of the fuckin' odds you'd get! Forget heating this shit-hole you could buy the Bahamas and walk around in the fuckin' nude all day. Pass me another beer man."

4. He'd never hear the end of it from his mum's side of the family if he left it off any longer. They didn't seem to grasp that even though they were on the same continent, it was not "so convienient to drop up for the weekend!"

5. This had not helped Jemaine get back into Bret's good books. He stretched them so much that they hung baggily on Bret's much-smaller frame like a little girl dressing up in her mother's clothes. Pointing this out hadn't helped him get back on Bret's good side either.

6. The dread with which they spoke the words, The Tent, fully earned them the capital letters.

7. Unless they had brought the monster from under his bed back home with them from New Zealand to New York and it had moved into The Tent with them. Or not. It was probably Bret.

8. In a very manly and not at all gay way

9. Not that Jemaine noticed. Or thought Bret was pretty.

10. Not that he was forgiven yet.


End file.
